Cardiovascular primary prevention risk factors in a nationwide survey, ABC (atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure and high cholesterol) risk factors in the LIPIDOGRAM2015 study

Abstract Background The National Health Service in England “Long Term Plan” aims to prevent 150,000 strokes and myocardial infarctions over the next 10 years. To achieve this, resources are being allocated to improve early detection of conditions strongly associated with cardiovascular disease. This includes working towards people routinely knowing their “ABC” risk factors (“A”: atrial fibrillation (AF), “B': hypertension and “C”: high cholesterol) (1). Purpose The aims of this study were to: 1) determine the proportion of participants with “A”, “B”, and “C” criteria; and 2) to identify risk factors for patients fulfilling any of these criteria. Methods LIPIDOGRAM2015 was a nationwide cross-sectional survey for adults in Poland. Adults were recruited in 2015 and 2016 by 438 family physicians. For the ABC criteria, “A” was defined as AF identified in the medical records of the participant, “B” was defined as either systolic blood pressure greater than 140mmHg or diastolic blood pressure greater than 90mmHg or both, and “C” was defined as total cholesterol greater than 200mg/dL (5.17mmol/L). The scaled and centred dataset underwent principal component analysis using singular value decomposition to achieve dimensionality reduction. K-means clustering was used to stratify patients with Hartigan's rule being used to identify optimal K number (2–4). The p-value for statistical significance used in this study was p